Santiago

Santiago

Santiago

Santiago

Santiago

Santiago

Santiago suffers terribly throughout The Old Man
and the Sea. In the opening pages of the book, he has gone
eighty-four days without catching a fish and has become the laughingstock
of his small village. He then endures a long and grueling struggle
with the marlin only to see his trophy catch destroyed by sharks.
Yet, the destruction enables the old man to undergo a remarkable
transformation, and he wrests triumph and renewed life from his
seeming defeat. After all, Santiago is an old man whose physical
existence is almost over, but the reader is assured that Santiago
will persist through Manolin, who, like a disciple, awaits the old
man’s teachings and will make use of those lessons long after his
teacher has died. Thus, Santiago manages, perhaps, the most miraculous
feat of all: he finds a way to prolong his life after death.

Santiago’s commitment to sailing out farther than any
fisherman has before, to where the big fish promise to be, testifies
to the depth of his pride. Yet, it also shows his determination
to change his luck. Later, after the sharks have destroyed his prize
marlin, Santiago chastises himself for his hubris (exaggerated pride),
claiming that it has ruined both the marlin and himself. True as
this might be, it is only half the picture, for Santiago’s pride
also enables him to achieve his most true and complete self. Furthermore,
it helps him earn the deeper respect of the village fishermen and
secures him the prized companionship of the boy—he knows that he
will never have to endure such an epic struggle again.

Santiago’s pride is what enables him to endure, and it
is perhaps endurance that matters most in Hemingway’s conception
of the world—a world in which death and destruction, as part of
the natural order of things, are unavoidable. Hemingway seems to
believe that there are only two options: defeat or endurance until destruction; Santiago
clearly chooses the latter. His stoic determination is mythic, nearly
Christ-like in proportion. For three days, he holds fast to the
line that links him to the fish, even though it cuts deeply into
his palms, causes a crippling cramp in his left hand, and ruins his
back. This physical pain allows Santiago to forge a connection with
the marlin that goes beyond the literal link of the line: his bodily
aches attest to the fact that he is well matched, that the fish
is a worthy opponent, and that he himself, because he is able to
fight so hard, is a worthy fisherman. This connectedness to the
world around him eventually elevates Santiago beyond what would
otherwise be his defeat. Like Christ, to whom Santiago is unashamedly compared
at the end of the novella, the old man’s physical suffering leads
to a more significant spiritual triumph.